From Bob:

Researchers found a huge decline in happiness four years into a marriage with another decline in years seven to eight. In fact, half of all divorces occur in the first seven years of marriage, which gives rise to the popular term “the seven-year itch. This is what often happens if you just leave your marriage to chance. Wouldn’t you rather make your husband so devoted to making you happy that he’d never, ever consider leaving you?

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Does the thought of changing a man seem controlling and manipulative? Well then you’d be surprised to learn that men expect and even want a woman to influence them. For all the complaining that men do about women being “nagging” or “controlling,” they spend money and a lot of their time in pursuit of women.

During the first few weeks or months of dating most men go out of their way to impress a woman. They are full of passion for the woman, which causes them to feel certain about their feelings.

Most women feel that if they were thin or pretty enough, or knew the right way to act or think that they would be able to influence their man and change his behavior. Is that just wishful thinking? Actually it’s not, at least to a point.

It is possible for a woman to influence a man in many different ways. In fact, women have always had this ability.

If I had to prove this concept, I’d set up this simple experiment. I would take a room full of 15 high school boys that were acting disrespectfully to the teacher. Let’s say that these boys were between 15-16 years old. Then I’d make one change to get them to act differently. I’d put double the number of girls in the room.

Just that one change would cause those boys to act differently. They’d become more self conscious. They’d find that the behavior that impresses their buddies isn’t very appealing to the girls. Even though some of them would still try and “show off,” some wouldn’t. I couldn’t completely make every boy behave, but enough would be concerned with what the girls thought of them, that the overall attitude of the school room would improve significantly.

As a woman, you can have that kind of power over a man. You can help him improve in most areas of his life…except these two.

You cannot change a man’s personality or moral character.

If he lies, then he’ll continue to lie, no matter how sexy you dress.

If he is lazy, then he’ll continue to be lazy, no matter how encouraging you are.

If he is mean, selfish, etc. those characteristics are not changeable….unless he’s working to change them himself.

The only time a woman has any chance of changing a man’s character is when she’s married. The reason for this is that at this point she has leverage over him. The fear of a woman leaving him can often bring a man with poor character to the point where he realizes he needs to make serious changes in his life, lest he lose his wife.

The famous actor Robert Downey, Jr. (Iron Man) had just such an experience with his wife who told him specifically, “Either you stop using drugs, or I’m outta here.” He stopped.

If you’re single and dating someone who lies, steals or is mean, don’t try and save him. Even though you may love him, simply being kind, loving and beautiful won’t be enough.